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What is Social Media Management for HVAC?
Social media management oversees social platforms or apps that allow users to create and distribute content and partake in social networking. For HVAC companies, social media refers to business profiles on Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms, along with shared content on the profile’s timeline.
Do HVAC Contractors Need Social Media Marketing?
By now, everyone should know how powerful social media marketing is and how much impact it can make on your business. A well-crafted social media marketing campaign takes time and careful planning. It’s as much a thought process as it is a process of action.
Social Media Platforms for HVAC Companies
You’ve probably heard of the most popular social media platforms from friends or family members, and you may even be an active member yourself.
However, these platforms play a different role when promoting your business online than when it comes to personal use. Understanding which platforms are worth your time can save you resources and allow you to focus on the areas that can help your business thrive.
Let’s look at some primary social networks for HVAC:
Facebook remains the world’s #1 social media platform, with 2.9 billion monthly active users. HVAC companies can create a Facebook Business Page to reach potential customers.
Obviously, the update encouraged businesses to invest in Facebook Ads to reach their target audience since organic posts no longer worked.
As an HVAC company, Facebook Ads are an option, but organically posting is less valuable. Still, updating your business information, uploading recent photos, and keeping your timeline current enough to look professional is important.
Instagram nears 2 billion active monthly users and has emerged as one of the top social media platforms in the world. Owned by Facebook, Instagram is also part of the Facebook Ads network, so Ads managers can run their ads on Facebook and Instagram simultaneously.
In addition, businesses can take advantage of Instagram’s visual nature by posting video stories and images. While Instagram differs slightly from other platforms, publishing a blog post is impossible; for example, it is a unique medium to keep consumers up-to-date on your company’s progress.
Instagram Reels have emerged as another great marketing opportunity. They present short videos (similar to TikTok and YouTube Shorts) to users. HVAC companies can take advantage of this by clipping out long-form videos from podcasts or shooting short skits that may connect with future customers.
With nearly 900 million users, LinkedIn is the most professional social network on the web. While Facebook and others host personal profiles, LinkedIn hosts business profiles for prospective job seekers and employers.
As an HVAC company, you are the employer, but that doesn’t mean you have to use it only for hiring people.
There’s inherent value in publishing a LinkedIn Business Page, whether you plan to run job ads or not. You can curate content on LinkedIn and connect with other industry professionals. You might even find some interesting insights on your timeline.
YouTube
The popular video platform now has over 2 billion active users, making it a must-have for HVAC companies. Every HVAC business can create a YouTube channel simply by logging into their Gmail account.
While you might be hesitant to post video content on the platform, it is a great way to reach prospective customers. Twenty years ago, you’d have had to pay for a local TV spot to promote your business through a commercial.
With YouTube, you can reach people organically by adding the proper tags to your video description. You can also invest in YouTube ads to reach people while they watch other popular videos about your topics.
HVACR Social Media Campaigns
For any marketing or ad campaign, you must take the necessary time to think about who your audience is and what you are trying to say to them. These two considerations should always be the inception of your social media marketing (or genesis) campaign.
So, for example, as an HVAC contractor, let’s say you want to make people in your local area aware of your business and the type of services you offer. Right off the bat, you will target certain people in a geographical region.
Secondly, you will probably want to speak directly to homeowners. That further narrows your audience down in general from people in their early to mid-’30s to people in their 60s or 70s (the average age range of homeowners).
Now, you have a general customer profile: customers between 30 and 60 in your area. You must figure out how to reach these people through social media. Now, what will you say when you reach them?
Your goal is to make them aware of your business and your services. However, the message you send should differ depending on the age range. For instance, your social media posts for new homeowners in their 30s should differ from those targeting established homeowners in their 50s and 60s.
New homeowners will be less experienced in handling HVAC problems and will likely not have a go-to HVAC company to call when a problem arises.
For this younger group of homeowners, your HVAC social media campaign should focus more on knowledge-based content, such as infographics, tutorials, and the like.
For older homeowners who probably already have an HVAC guy they have hired before, your social media marketing campaign should be more promotional – how your services can help more than others.
Choosing Your Social Media Marketing Platform
The next consideration is which social media platforms to post on. But this one is pretty easy because you should be present on all of them at the end of the day. Still, you may want to focus on some more than others.
Roughly 32% of all Instagram users are between 25 and 34, right about when people buy their first homes. So, Instagram would be a great platform to emphasize your HVAC social media marketing campaign and gain new customers.
Facebook is also still popular, and you should also have an account for your business there. However, Facebook usage among people in the same age range is waning. Only about 25% of all Facebook users are in the 25-34 age range.
Again, it would help if you were on all social media platforms, but your strategy should differ depending on which one you create content for.
Creating Content
Now we get to the tricky part: How do you create engaging content for your HVAC company? But before we can tackle that question, we have to rewind a little bit. What is the goal of your HVAC social media marketing campaign?
Yes, it should be to make people aware of your business and gain new customers. But as far as the social media platforms themselves, what’s the end game? It may seem trite, but you are going for likes and shares.
You want people to interact with your company through social media. Social media interaction takes the form of likes and people sharing your content with others.
You have to create content that people will want to share. To do this, it may be helpful to see what some of your competitors are doing. While you never want to plagiarize someone else’s content, it may help you get your creative juices flowing.
Let’s start with Instagram. Instagram stories should be a major target for your HVAC social media marketing campaign. Instagram stories are viewed by 500 million people every single day. Instagram stories are pictures or videos that can include text and are only live for 24 hours.
Your Instagram stories can be about a recently completed job or maybe the recorded testimonial of one of your satisfied customers. You could also introduce your crew and share some interesting facts or anecdotes about them in your Instagram stories.
While it’s always a good idea to stay on brand, it never hurts to post something genuinely funny on an Instagram story. Remember, the point is getting people to like and share your content. Sometimes, the best way to go about that won’t have anything to do with HVAC.
But in many cases, it will. This is why we should also talk about Facebook posts. Static Facebook posts (non-video and live video posts) can be very informative. Think about the HVAC problems/questions that many of your customers have had over the years.
Then, turn those questions (along with answers to them) into helpful Facebook posts. Remember to keep your posts as short as possible. The optimal Facebook post length is between 40 and 80 characters. So keep it short, sweet, and to the point.
Video content should be part of your HVAC social media marketing strategy for platforms like TikTok and YouTube. YouTube allows you to get more in-depth information about your knowledge. Consider posting simple HVAC how-to’s.
For TikTok, consider video posts that show your followers what their central air unit should look and sound like when it’s running optimally.
Publishing Posts
Once you have enough content to share, it may help you utilize a social media planning tool. A social media planning tool will make scheduling HVAC social media posts easier, as well as creating captions, uploading your content, and distributing it to various platforms.
HubSpot, Sprout Social, and Hootsuite are all examples of social media planning tools. These tools allow you to track post stats and see how many people interacted with a certain post. This is very helpful for marketing campaign auditing as you will see what strategies are working and which ones aren’t.
It’s also important to figure out how often you should post. Social media marketing is another tricky aspect because every business is different. If you post too much, you could risk inundating your audience. If you post too infrequently, your audience will forget about you.
But generally, you should only post with quality content to share. If you’ve got a great creative team behind you or you naturally come upon genuinely funny, interesting, helpful, insightful, or informative content, great! Post that stuff as often as it comes up.
But if you don’t, please don’t force it. Some social media marketers make this mistake a lot. Posting once a week or once a month is fine, and infrequent posting is better than flooding your users’ feeds with dross.
Running Social Media Ads
Several social media platforms use an algorithm to discourage organic content from appearing on users’ timelines. For example, your HVAC company won’t reach many people with simple Facebook posts.
Reaching more people through Facebook Advertising is the way to go. The same is true of Instagram Advertising and, to a lesser extent, YouTube Advertising. You can still appear on YouTube without buying ad space, but it’s something to remember.
Despite limited exposure to “free social media posts,” having a profile remains critical. Profiles serve as citations like Yelp or Angi’. However, remember that various forms of advertising create the most exposure.
Consider boosting your Facebook Post so that more users view the content. After all, impressions translate to conversions with the proper marketing strategy. Make sure to monitor your ad spend budget by setting a daily and lifetime limit.
Don’t Forget the Basics
Remember to stay on-brand with all your posts. How do you stay on brand with a hilarious video of your cat sleeping on your head? Just make sure your company name/logo is present on the post. Your company name/logo should be on all your posts.
A link to your website should also be present on all Facebook posts, YouTube video posts, and Instagram posts as well. Make sure your company name/logo is consistent on all posts. This not only looks professional but will leave more of a more lasting impression on your followers.
Using social media ads is also a great way to increase brand awareness. But remember to do your research. Keyword research can help you form your ads and make them more effective. Also, consider your most popular services or ones you want to promote when creating ads.
Social Media Marketing Services for HVAC
Here at HVAC Webmasters, we specialize in HVAC social media marketing. We can help create content, manage ads, and much more. Talk to us today, and let us help you devise an effective HVAC social media marketing campaign.
